The programs that could be viewed by the users are not limited to the programs stored on the optical disc due to emergence of network optical disc formats (for example, enhanced eDVD optical disc format, Blue-ray disc BD format, etc.), they extend to the network programs related to the contents on optical discs. Downloading programs from networks and playing these programs have become a very popular entertainment way.
When distributing network optical discs, an optical disc content provider provides in a network server the network programs corresponding to the contents on the distributed optical discs for downloading by optical disc user. In general, these network programs are played synchronously with the video and audio contents on the local optical discs to enhance playing effect. As a part of the contents of network program, some enhanced information like web page, animation, program introduction or staff introduction, etc. are downloaded to the user terminal along with the network programs.
These enhanced information often includes some novel fonts or glyphs, original graphics or motion vector graphics with animation effect, etc. In addition, the network programs stored in the network are often updated, so are the fonts and graphics required for playing the programs.
The software resources supporting these new contents, such as the font library supporting the fonts that need to be displayed, graphic library supporting graphic display or other auxiliary programs for enhancing playing, are usually downloaded along with network programs. Taking a font as an example, because different fonts of a character have different dot matrix structures and profiles, corresponding font data (i.e. dot matrix structure data and profile data, etc.) are required for displaying a character according to a particular font, otherwise it is impossible to output and display this character. Likewise, the playing effect will be affected if a graphic, especially a new graphic, has no corresponding graphic library locally.
Usually, the software resources downloaded together with the network programs are quite large, for example, a font library file ranges from 3 MB to 20 MB. Thus, the time required for downloading is longer, especially in the case of network bandwidth shortage or network congestion, the playing of network programs may have to be interrupted and the playing quality cannot be guaranteed, as a result the users lost interest of viewing the programs.
One of the methods for solving the problem of downloading software resource is to download in advance the software resources that may be used to the user terminal playing apparatus. On one hand, this method can satisfy the requirements in most cases, but the limited storage space of the user terminal playing apparatus will be occupied. On the other hand, because network programs and enhanced information are often updated, the software resources that are downloaded in advance cannot cover all the required fonts, graphics, programs, etc., in particular the newly arising fonts, graphics, programs, etc.
Another method for solving the problem of downloading software resource is to determine the locally absent resources through an optical disc playing apparatus after downloading the network programs, then transmit a request for downloading the absent software resources to the network server. If, during playing the network programs, the playing apparatus finds that the font data of a certain character is absent, then requests for downloading from the network server and allocates certain network bandwidth to download the required font data, the process of playing programs will be inevitably affected. Such method cannot guarantee the playing quality and the process of playing programs is loaded with trivial details.
Therefore, it needs to provide a method and apparatus for configuring software resources for playing network programs so as to realize rapidly the configuration of software resources and avoid the delay or interrupt of playing network program due to fonts and graphics being not supported or not supported timely.